Managing the Family Owned Business

The construction industry has an extraordinarily
high percentage of family-owned and
managed businesses. These businesses face unique
growth and development problems
because they are, after all, "part of the family."
Solving the problems of the family-run
business is usually difficult, because emotion
too often replaces common sense. No matter
how objective people tell themselves they may
be, most people can't segregate their personal
feelings and emotions toward family members
from the hard realities of business.
The tendency to judge the performance of
family members not by industry standards, but
by their personal assets and liabilites, is one of
the biggest problems confronting the familyrun
firm. The first stage in creating "dead
wood" occurs when excuses are made